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Get Over it!

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When Alan Dershowitz stands before the US Senate and argues, without a trace of irony, that the president was acting in the national interest when he engaged in a pro quid pro with Ukraine, and Republican senators buy it, you know the gig is up.  At this point, the president can do literally anything in the so-called national interest and get away with it. Laurence Tribe argues that accepting an interpretation such as this "puts us on a short path toward dictatorship."

It's bad enough we have to listen to reality show lawyers like Dershowitz and Starr, but why aren't Republican senators questioning these incredibly lame arguments?  Even Fox News legal analyst Judge Napolitano considers the whole thing a sham.  John Bolton, who desperately wants to testify for whatever reasons of his own, has now been labeled persona non grata at Fox.  I'm surprised Fox has retained Judge Nap's services, as he has been a vocal critic throughout the impeachment process.

At the center of this giant mess is Mitch McConnell.  He's the one who calls the shots and so far has made sure everything goes the president's way.  It's not like he had to be so obvious.  He could have at least pretended to have a trial with new witnesses and evidence, but has instead chosen to bar any new information.  Those Republicans who do feel Trump had exercised poor judgement are willing to give him a pass.  They don't regard his elaborate extortion attempt, which occupied virtually the entire cabinet, impeachable.  He literally had everyone from the Secretary of State down to the Secretary of Energy working on this.  It seems one of the few persons left out of the loop is Ben Carson.  Not only that but numerous senators were involved as well, notably Rob Portman.  Basically, Mitch has been asked to be janitor.

We will somehow survive Trump, but what does this say about the future?  Given the horrible precedent that is being set, any president can now claim that whatever bit of skullduggery he engages in is in the national interest.  Basically, all legislative oversight has been removed.  Chief Justice John Roberts is apparently fine with this, as he has voiced no objections.  One of the few times he has intruded on proceedings is to stop Paul Rand from calling out the whistleblower, not that it matters anymore.

After numerous attempts to deny Trump's attempt to extort Ukraine into reopening an investigation into the Burisma holding company, Republicans now accept it as just part of the job.  The president occasionally has to strong arm world leaders.  Get over it! as Mick Mulvaney once infamously said.

Hard to believe that this Republican Senate once proclaimed Obama a tyrant for using his executive authority to sign treaties without their approval.  The same Senate, led by Mitch McConnell, also blocked every single one of Obama's judicial appointments his last two years in office, determined not to have the former president "stack" federal courts.

What was considered imperial overreach for one president is now considered part of a day's work for another.  The level hypocrisy is so profound, you wonder how any of these Republicans can keep a straight face.  They only get away with it because they have 53 votes to the Democrats 47.

We had hoped that some Republicans, like Mitt Romney and Lamar Alexander and maybe even Lisa Murkowski, might step forward and call foul, but no such luck.  Romney has been critical, but more often than not he has toed the Republican party line.  Alexander just wants it done, and Murkowski has been quiet as a mouse.

The sad part of all this is that it doesn't matter what the Democrats do, as most Americans regard politics as so inherently corrupt these days that it doesn't matter who is in office.  This is how Trump has been able to get away with his bald-faced charade.  The level of cynicism is now so deep that he could very easily win re-election, as voters generally tend to prefer the "devil they know" to the "devil they don't know."

This seems to be why so many Republican leaders are sticking with Trump, they don't want to fall out of favor with the dictator they have created.  The transformation toward an autocracy is very nearly complete.  In the future, His Trumpness won't even need a pretense to open an investigation on any Democratic rival, as it will all be in the name of national interest.

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